The Baker Office Building

One of the Grove Society’s enduring accomplishments was moving and restoring the Baker Office Building from its original home on East Church Street to its present location at the lower entrance to Leonard-Leota Park. That building now serves as the Society’s museum and home to a trove of  historical artifacts.

In 2000, The Evansville Grove Society, the local history organization, relocated the Baker Manufacturing Company Office Building to 15 Antes Drive at the North Madison Street entrance of Leonard-Leota Park.  The park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, with 29 structures.   

The museum building is a historic yellow brick, formerly used as the office building for Baker Manufacturing Company, founded in Evansville in 1873. The building has been restored to serve as the office for the society and as a local history museum. Evansville’s colorful history is celebrated with revolving exhibits of community treasures and events.  From entrepreneurial inventions and early commercial enterprise to local circus lore and years of hosting the Rock County Fair, Evansville takes pride in decades of community vitality and sense of place.

Recently, a vintage Baker Monitor windmill, donated by Baker Manufacturing Company, was installed at the museum. Baker Manufacturing built windmills to pump water. Today, it is an international corporation that still makes water pumps.